Hippolytus seems to me to
have felt the perils to the pure Gospel of many admissions made by
Clement and other Alexandrian doctors as to the merits of some of the
philosophers of the Gentiles. Very gently, but with prescient
genius, he adopts this plan of tracing the origin and all the force of
heresies to “philosophy falsely so called.” The
existence of this “cloud of locusts” is (1) evidence of the
antagonism of Satan; (2) of the prophetic spirit of the apostles; (3)
of the tremendous ferment produced by the Gospel leaven as soon as it
was hid in the “three measures of meal” by “the Elect
Lady,” the Ecclesia Dei; (4) of the fidelity of the
witnesses,—that grand, heroic glory of the Ante-Nicene
Fathers,—who never suffered these heresies to be
mis154taken for the faith, or
to corrupt the Scriptures; and (5) finally of the power of the Holy
Spirit, who gave them victory over errors, and enabled them to define
truth in all the crystalline beauty of that “Mountain of
Light,” that true Koh-i-noor, the Nicene Symbol. Thus,
also, Christ’s promises were fulfilled.

II.

(Caulacau, p. 52.)

See Irenæus, p. 350, vol. i., this series,
where I have explained this jargon of heresy. But I think it
worth while to make use here of two notes on the subject, which I made
in 1845,11091109 I
venture to state this to encourage young students to keep pen in hand
in all their researches, and always to make notes. with little
foresight of these tasks in 1885.

Hippolytus had little idea, when he wrote this,
what the word Papa was destined to signify in mediæval
Rome. The Abba of Holy Writ has its equivalent in many
Oriental languages, as well as in the Greek and Latin, through which it
has passed into all the dialects of Europe. It was originally
given to all presbyters, as implied in their name of
elders, and was a title of humility when it became peculiar to
the bishops, as (1 Pet.
v. 3) non Domini sed
patres. St. Paul (1
Cor. iv. 15) shows that
“in Christ”—that is, under Him—we may have such
“fathers;” and thus, while he indicates the true sense of
the precept, he leads us to recognise a prophetic force and
admonition in our Saviour’s words (Matt. xxiii.), “Call no man your father
upon the earth.” Thus interpreted, these words seem to be a
warning against the sense to which this name, Papa, became, long
afterwards, restricted, in Western Europe: Notre St. Père, le Pape, as they say in
France. This was done by the decree of the ambitious Hildebrand,
Gregory VII. (who died a.d. 1085), when, in a
synod held at Rome, he defined that “the title Pope should
be peculiar to one only in the Christian world.” The
Easterns, of course, never paid any respect to this novelty and
dictation, and to this day their patriarchs are popes; and not only so,
for the parish priests of the Greek churches are called by the same
name. I was once cordially invited to take a repast “with
the pope,” on visiting a Greek church on the shores of the
Adriatic. It is said, however, that a distinction is made between
the words πάπας and παπᾶς; the latter being peculiar
to inferiors, according to the refinements of Goar, a Western
critic. Valeat quantum. But I must here note, that as
“words are things,” and as infinite damage has been done to
history and to Christian truth by tolerating this empiricism of Rome, I
have restored scientific accuracy, in this series, whenever reference
is made to the primitive bishops of Rome, who were no more
“Popes” than Cincinnatus was an emperor. It is time
that theological science should accept, like other sciences, the
language of truth and the terminology of demonstrated fact. The
early bishops of Rome were geographically important, and were honoured
as sitting in the only apostolic see of 155the West; but they were almost
inconsiderable in the structural work of the ante-Nicene ages, and have
left no appreciable impress on its theology. After the Council of
Nice they were recognised as patriarchs, though equals among brethren,
and nothing more. The ambition of Boniface III. led him to name
himself “universal bishop.” This was at first a mere
name “of intolerable pride,” as his predecessor Gregory had
called it, but Nicholas I. (a.d. 858) tried to
make it real, and, by means of the false decretals, created himself the
first “Pope” in the modern sense, imposing his despotism on
the West, and identifying it with the polity of Western churches, which
alone submitted to it. Thus, it was never Catholic, and came into
existence only by nullifying the Nicene Constitutions, and breaking
away from Catholic communion with the parent churches of the
East. Compare Casaubon (Exercit., xiv. p. 280, etc.) in
his comments on Baronius. I have thus stated with scientific
precision what all candid critics and historians, even the Gallicans
included, enable us to prove. Why, then, keep up the language of
fiction and imposture,11101110
Pompey and others were called imperatores before the
Cæsars, but who includes them with the Roman emperors? so
confusing to young students? I believe the youthful Oxonians whom
our modern Tertullian carried with him into the papal schism, could
never have been made dupes but for the persistent empiricism of
orthodox writers who practically adopt in words what they refute in
argument, calling all bishops of Rome “Popes,” and even
including St. Peter’s blessed name in this fallacious
designation.11111111 How St.
Peter would regard it, see 1
Pet. v. 1–3. I am sorry to find Dr.
Schaff, in his useful compilation, History of the Christian
Church, vol. ii. p 166, dropping into the old ruts of fable, after
sufficiently proving just before, what I have maintained. He
speaks of “the insignificance of the first
Popes,”—meaning the early Bishops of Rome, men who
minded their own business, but could not have been
“insignificant” had they even imagined themselves
“Popes.” In this
series I adhere to the logic of facts, calling (1) all the bishops of
Rome from Linus to Sylvester simply bishops; and (2) all their
successors to Nicholas I. “patriarchs” under the Nicene
Constitutions, which they professed to honour, though, after
Gregory the Great, they were ever vying with Constantinople to make
themselves greater. (3) Nicholas, who trampled on the Nicene
Constitutions, and made the false decretals the canon law of the
Western churches, was therefore the first “Pope” who
answers to the Tridentine definitions. Even these, however, were
never able to make dogmatic11121112
See Bossuet, passim, and all the Gallican doctors down to
our own times. In England the “supremacy” was
never acknowledged, nor in France, until now.
the claim of “supremacy,” which was first done by Pius IX.
in our days. A canonical Primacy is one thing: a
self-asserted Supremacy is quite another, as the French doctors
have abundantly demonstrated.

IV.

(Contemporaneous heresy, p. 125.)

Here begins that “duplicating of our
knowledge” of primitive Rome of which Bunsen speaks so
justly. A thorough mastery of this book will prepare us to
understand the great Cyprian in all his relations with the Roman
Province, and not less to comprehend the affairs of Novatian.

Bunsen, with all respect, does not comprehend the
primitive system, and reads it backward, from the modern system,
which travesties antiquity even in its apparent
conformities. These conformities are only the borrowing of old
names for new contrivances. Thus, he reads the cardinals of the
eleventh century into the simple presbytery of comprovincial bishops of
the third century,11131113 See
his Hippol., vol. i. pp. 209, 311.
just as he elsewhere lugs in the Ave Maria of modern Italy to
expound the Evening Hymn to the Trinity.11141114 See
vol. ii. p. 298, this series. In a professed Romanist, like De
Maistre, this would be resented as jugglery. But let us come to
facts. Bunsen’s preliminary remarks11151115 p.
207. are excellent. But when he comes to
note an “exceptional system” in the Roman
“presbytery,” he certainly confuses all things. Let
us recur to Tertullian.11161116 Vol.
iv. p 114, Elucidation II., this series. See how much was already established
in his day, which the 156Council of Nicæa recognised a century
later as (τὰ
ἀρχαῖα
ἔθη) old primitive institutions. In
all things the Greek churches were the exemplar and the model for other
churches to follow. “Throughout the provinces of
Greece,” he says, “there are held, in definite
localities, those councils,” etc. “If we also, in
our diverse provinces, observe,” etc. Now,
these councils, or “meetings,” in spite of the emperors or
the senate who issued mandates against them, as appears from the same
passage, were, in the Roman Province, made up of the comprovincial
bishops: and their gatherings seem to have been called “the
Roman presbytery;” for, as is evident, the bishops and elders
were alike called “presbyters,” the word being as common to
both orders as the word pastors or clergymen in our
days. According to the thirty-fourth of the “Canons
Apostolical,” as Bunsen remarks, “the bishops of the
suburban towns, including Portus, also formed at that time an integral
part of the Roman presbytery.” This word also refers
to all the presbyters of the diocese of Rome itself; and I doubt not
originally the laity had their place, as they did in Carthage:
“the apostles, elders, and brethren” being the formula of
Scripture; or, “with the whole Church,” which includes
them,—omni plebe adstante.11171117
Even Quinet notes this. See his Ultramontanism, p.
40, ed. 1845. Now, all this accounts, as Bunsen
justly observes, for the fact that one of the “presbytery”
should be thus repeatedly called presbyter and “at the same time
have the charge of the church at Portus, for which (office) there was
no other title than the old one of bishop; for such was the
title of every man who presided over the congregation in any
city,—at Ostia, at Tusculum, or in the other suburban
cities.

Now let us turn to the thirty-fourth11181118
Bunsen gives it as the thirty-fifth, vol. i. p. 311.
“Apostolical Canon” (so called), and note as follows:
“It is necessary that the bishops of every nation should know who
is chief among them, and should recognise him as their head by doing
nothing of great moment without his consent; and that each of them
should do such things only as pertain to his own parish and the
districts under him. And neither let him do any thing without
the consent of all, for thus shall there be unity of heart, and thus
shall God be glorified through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I do
not pause to expound this word parish, for I am elucidating
Hippolytus by Bunsen’s aid, and do not intend to interpolate my
own theory of the primitive episcopate.

Let the “Apostolical Constitutions” go
for what they are worth:11191119 Of
which we shall learn in vol. viii., this series. I refer to them only under lead of
Dr. Bunsen. But now turn to the Nicene Council (Canon VI.) as
follows: “Let the ancient customs prevail in Egypt,
Libya, and Pentapolis, so that the Bishop of Alexandria have
jurisdiction in all these provinces, since the like is customary in
Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other
provinces, let the churches retain their privileges.”
Here the Province of Rome is recognised as an ancient
institution, while its jurisdiction and privileges are equalized with
those of other churches. Now, Rufinus, interpreting this canon,
says it means, “the ancient custom of Alexandria and Rome shall
still be observed; that the one shall have the care or government of
the Egyptian, and the other that of the suburbicary
churches.” Bunsen refers us to Bingham, and from him we
learn that the suburbicary region, as known to the Roman
magistrates, included only “a hundred miles about
Rome.”11201120 See
Bingham, book ix. cap. i. sec. 9. This seems to
have been canonically extended even to Sicily on the south, but
certainly not to Milan on the north. Suffice it, Hippolytus was
one of those suburbicarian bishops who sat in the Provincial
Council of Rome; without consent of which the Bishop of Rome could not,
canonically, do anything of importance, as the canon above cited
ordains. Such are the facts necessary to a comprehension of
conflicts excited by “the contemporaneous heresy,” here
noted.

V.

(Affairs of the Church, p. 125.)

“Zephyrinus imagines that he
administers the affairs of the Church—an uninformed and
shamefully corrupt man.” This word imagines is
common with Hippolytus in like cases, and 157Dr. Wordsworth gives an ingenious
explanation of this usage. But it seems to me to be based upon
the relations of Hippolytus as one of the synod or
“presbytery,” without consent of which the bishop could do
nothing important. Zephyrinus, on the contrary, imagined
himself competent to decide as to the orthodoxy of a tenet or of a
teacher, without his comprovincials. This, too, relieves our
author from the charge of egotism when he exults in the defeat
of such a bishop.11211121
Wordsworth, chap. viii. p. 93. He says,
it is true, “Callistus threw off Sabellius through fear of
me,” and we may readily believe that; but he certainly
means to give honour to others in the Province when he says,
“We resisted Zephyrinus and Callistus;”
“We nearly converted Sabellius;” “All were
carried away by the hypocrisy of Callistus, except
ourselves.” This man cried out to his episcopal
brethren, “Ye are Ditheists,” apparently in open
council. His council prevailed over him by the wise leadership of
Hippolytus, however; and he says of the two guilty bishops,
“Never, at any time, have we been guilty of collusion with
them.” They only imagined, therefore, that they
were managing the “affairs of the Church.” The
fidelity of their comprovincials preserved the faith of the Apostles in
apostolic Rome.

VI.

(We offered them opposition, p. 125.)

Here we see that Hippolytus had no idea of the
sense some put upon the convenire of his master
Irenæus.11221122 See
vol. i. pp. 415, 460, this series. It was not
“necessary” for them to conform their doctrines to
that of the Bishop of Rome, evidently; nor to “the Church
of Rome” as represented by him. To the church which
presided over a province, indeed, recourse was to be had by all
belonging to that province; but it is our author’s grateful
testimony, that to the council of comprovincials, and not to any
one bishop therein, Rome owed its own adhesion to orthodoxy at this
crisis.

All this illustrates the position of Tertullian,
who never thinks of ascribing to Rome any other jurisdiction than that
belonging to other provinces. As seats of testimony, the
apostolic sees, indeed, are all to be honoured. “In
Greece, go to Corinth; in Asia Minor, to Ephesus; if you are adjacent
to Italy, you have Rome; whence also (an apostolic) authority is at
hand for us in Africa.” Such is his view of
“contemporaneous affairs.”

VII.

(Heraclitus the Obscure, p. 126.)

“Well might he weep,” says Tayler
Lewis, “as Lucian represents him, over his overflowing universe
of perishing phenomena, where nothing stood;…nothing was
fixed, but, as in a mixture, all things were confounded.”
He was “the weeping philosopher.”

Here let me add Henry Nelson Coleridge’s
remarks on the Greek seed-plot of those philosophies which were
begotten of the Egyptian mysteries, and which our author regards as, in
turn, engendering “all heresies,” when once their leaders
felt, like Simon Magus, a power in the Gospel of which they were
jealous, and of which they wished to make use without submitting to its
yoke. “Bishop Warburton,” says Henry Nelson
Coleridge, “discovered, perhaps, more ingenuity than sound
judgment in his views of the nature of the Greek mysteries;
entertaining a general opinion that their ultimate object was to teach
the initiated a pure theism, and to inculcate the certainty and the
importance of a future state of rewards and punishments. I am led
by the arguments of Villoison and Ste. Croix to doubt the accuracy of
this.” In short, he supposes a “pure
pantheism,” or Spinosism, the substance of their
teaching.11231123Introduction to Greek Classics, p. 228.

This and the foregoing chapter offer us a most
overwhelming testimony to the independence of councils. In the
late “Council of Sacristans” at the Vatican, where truth
perished, Pius IX. refused to all the bishops of what he accounted
“the Catholic universe” what the seven suburbicarian
bishops were able to enforce as a right, in the primitive age, against
two successive Bishops of Rome, who were patrons of heresy. These
heretical prelates persisted; but the Province remained in communion
with the other apostolic provinces, while rejecting all communion with
them. All this will help us in studying Cyprian’s treatise
On Unity, and it justifies his own conduct.

IX.

(The episcopal throne, p. 128.)

The simple primitive cathedra,11241124 See
vol. ii. p. 12, also iv. 210. of which we may
learn something from the statue of Hippolytus, was, no doubt, “a
throne” in the eyes of an ambitious man. Callistus is here
charged, by one who knew him and his history, with obtaining this
position by knavish words and practices. The question may well
arise, in our Christian love for antiquity, How could such things be,
even in the age of martyrdoms? Let us recollect, that under the
good Bishop Pius, when his brother wrote the Hermas, the peril
of wealth and love of money began to be imminent at Rome.
Tertullian testifies to the lax discipline of that see when he was
there. Minucius Felix lets us into the impressions made by the
Roman Christians upon surrounding heathen: they were a set of
conies burrowing in the earth; a “light-shunning people,”
lurking in the catacombs. And yet, while this fact shows plainly
that good men were not ambitious to come forth from these places of
exile and suffering, and expose themselves needlessly to death, it
leads us to comprehend how ambitious men, studiosi novarum
rerum, could remain above ground, conforming very little to
the discipline of Christ, making friends with the world, and yet using
their nominal religion on the principle that “gain is
godliness.” There were some wealthy Christians; there were
others, like Marcia in the palace, sufficiently awakened to perceive
their own wickedness, and anxious to do favours to the persecuted
flock, by way, perhaps, of compounding for sins not renounced.
And when we come to the Epistles of Cyprian,11251125
See Treatise on the Lapsed, infra. we shall see what opportunities were given
to desperate men to make themselves a sort of brokers to the Christian
community; for selfish ends helping them in times of peril, and
rendering themselves, to the less conscientious, a medium for keeping
on good terms with the magistrates. Such a character was
Callistus, one of “the grievous wolves” foreseen by St.
Paul when he exhorted his brethren night and day, with tears, to beware
of them. How he made himself Bishop of Rome, the holy Hippolytus
sufficiently explains.

X.

(Unskilled in ecclesiastical definitions, p. 128.)

It has been sufficiently demonstrated by the learned
Döllinger, than whom a more competent and qualified witness could
not be named, that the late pontiff, Pius IX., was in this respect, as
a bishop, very much like Callistus. Moreover, his chief adviser
and prime minister, Antonelli, was notoriously Callistus over again;
standing towards him in the same relations which Callistus bore to
Zephyrinus. Yet, by the bull Ineffabilis, that
pontiff has retrospectively clothed the definitions of Zephyrinus and
Callistus with infallibility; thus making himself also a
partaker in their heresies, and exposing himself to the
anathemas with which the Catholic councils overwhelmed his
predecessor Honorius and others. That at such a crisis the
testimony of Hippolytus 159should come to light, and supply a reductio
ad absurdum to the late papal definitions, may well excite such a
recognition of divine providence as Dr. Bunsen repeatedly suggests.

XI.

(All consented—we did not, p. 128.)

The Edinburgh editor supposes that the use of the
plural we, in this place, is the official plural of a
bishop. It has been already explained, however, that he is
speaking of the provincial bishops with whom he withstood Callistus
when the plebs were carried away by his hypocrisy. In
England, bishops in certain cases, are a “corporation
sole;” and, as such, the plural is legal phraseology. All
bishops, however, use the plural in certain documents, as identifying
themselves with the universal episcopate, on the Cyprianic
principle—Episcopatus unus est, etc.

In Acts v.
13 is a passage which
may be somewhat explained, perhaps, by this: “All
consented…we did not.” The plebs joined
themselves to the apostles; “but of the rest durst
no man join himself to them: howbeit, the plebs magnified
them, and believers were added,” etc. “The
rest” (τῶν
δὲ λοιπῶν) here
means the priests, the Pharisees, and Sadducees, the classes who were
not the plebs, as appears by what immediately follows.11261126 Ver.
17.

XII.

(Our condemnatory sentence, p. 131.)

Again: Hippolytus refers to the action of
the suburbicarian bishops in provincial council. And here
is the place to express dissatisfaction with the apologetic tone of
some writers, who seem to think Hippolytus too severe, etc. As
if, in dealing with such “wolves in sheep’s
clothing,” this faithful leader could show himself a true
shepherd without emphasis and words of abhorrence. Hippolytus has
left to the Church the impress of his character11271127
See p. v. supra. as “superlatively sweet and
amiable.” Such was St. John, the beloved disciple; but he
was not less a “son of thunder.” Our Divine Master
was “the Lamb,” and “the Lion;” the author of
the Beatitudes, and the author of those terrific woes;
the “meek and gentle friend of publicans and sinners,” and
the “lash of small cords” upon the backs of those who made
His Father’s house a “den of thieves.” Such was
Chrysostom, such was Athanasius, such was St. Paul, and such have ever
been the noblest of mankind; tender and considerate, gentle and full of
compassion; but not less resolute, in the crises of history, in
withstanding iniquity in the persons of arch-enemies of truth, and
setting the brand upon their foreheads. Good men, who hate
strife, and love study and quiet, and to be friendly with others; men
who never permit themselves to indulge a personal enmity, or to resent
a personal affront; men who forgive injuries to the last farthing when
they only are concerned,—may yet crucify their natures in
withstanding evil when they are protecting Christ’s flock, or
fulfilling the command to “contend earnestly for the faith once
delivered to the saints.” What the Christian Church owes to
the loving spirit of Hippolytus in the awful emergencies of his times,
protecting the poor sheep, and grappling with wolves for their sake,
the Last Day will fully declare. But let us who know nothing of
such warfare concede nothing, in judging of his spirit, to the spirit
of our unbelieving age, which has no censures except for the defenders
of truth:—

“Eternal smiles its emptiness betray,

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.”

Bon Dieu, bon diable, as
the French say, is the creed of the times. Every one who insults
the faith of Christians, who betrays truths he was sworn to defend, who
washes his hands but 160then
gives Christ over to be crucified, must be treated with especial
favour. Christ is good: so is Pilate; and Judas must not be
censured. My soul be with Hippolytus when the great Judge holds
his assize. His eulogy is in the psalm:11281128Ps. cvi.
30–31. “Then stood up Phinehas, and
executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed. And
that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations, for
evermore.”

XIII.

(As if he had not sinned, p. 131.)

There is an ambiguity in the facts as given in the
Edinburgh edition, of which it is hard to relieve the text. The
word καθίστασθαι
is rendered to retain (their places) in the first
instance, as if the case were all one with the second instance,
where μένειν is justly
rendered to continue. The second case seems, then, to
cover all the ground. What need to speak of men “twice or
thrice married,” if a man once married, after ordination
is not to be retained? The word retained is questionable
in the first instance; and I have adopted Wordsworth’s reading,
to be enrolled, which is doubtless the sense.

This statement of our author lends apparent
countenance to the antiquity of the “Apostolic
Constitutions,” so called. Perhaps Hippolytus really
supposed them to be apostolic. By Canon XVII. of that collection,
a man twice married, after baptism cannot be “on the sacerdotal
list at all.” By Canon XXVI., an unmarried person once
admitted to the clergy cannot be permitted to marry. These are
the two cases referred to by our author. In the Greek churches
this rule holds to this day; and the Council of Nice refused to
prohibit the married clergy to live in that holy estate, while allowing
the traditional discipline which Hippolytus had in view in
speaking of a violation of the twenty-sixth traditional canon as
a sin. As Bingham has remarked, however, canons of discipline may
be relaxed when not resting on fundamental and scriptural
laws.

XIV.

(Attempt to call themselves a Catholic Church, p.
131.)

The Callistians, it seems, became a
heretical sect, and yet presumed to call themselves a “Catholic
Church.” Yet this sect, while Callistus lived, was in full
communion with the Bishop of Rome. Such communion, then, was no
test of Catholicity. Observe the enormous crimes of which this
lawless one was guilty; he seems to antedate the age of
Theodora’s popes and Marozia’s, and what Hippolytus would
have said of them is not doubtful. It is remarkable that he
employed St. Paul’s expression, however, ὁ ἄνομος,112911292 Thess. ii. 8. “that
wicked” or that “lawless one,” seeing, in such a
bishop, what St. Gregory did in another,—“a forerunner of
the Antichrist.”

XV.

(Callistians, p. 131.)

Bunsen remarks that Theodoret speaks of this
sect11301130 Bunsen,
p. 134; Theodor., tom. iv. pt. i. p. 343, ed. Hal. 1772. under the head of
the “Noetians.” Wordsworth quotes as follows:
“Callistus took the lead in propagating this heresy after
Noetus, and devised certain additions to the impiety of the
doctrine.” In other words, he was not merely a heretic, but
himself a heresiarch. He gives the whole passage
textually,11311131St.
Hippol., p. 315. and institutes
interesting parallelisms between the Philosophumena and
Theodoret, who used our author, and boldly borrowed from
him.

When one looks at the infinite variety of
opinions, phrases, ideas, and the like, with which the heresies of
three centuries threatened to obscure, defile, and destroy the
revelations of Holy Scripture, who can but wonder at the miracle of
orthodoxy? Note with what fidelity the good fight of faith was
maintained, the depositum preserved, and the Gospel epitomized
at last in the Nicæno-Constantinopolitan definitions, which
Professor Shedd, as I have previously noted, declares to be the
accepted confession of all the reformed, reputed orthodox, as well as
of Greeks and Latins. Let us not be surprised, that, during these
conflicts, truth on such mysterious subjects was reflected from good
men’s minds with slight variations of expression. Rather
behold the miracle of their essential agreement, and of their
entire harmony in the Great Symbol, universally accepted as the
testimony of the ante-Nicene witnesses. The Word was Himself the
cause of all created things; Himself increate; His eternal generation
implied in the eternity of His existence and His distinct
personality.

XVII.

(Tartarus, p. 153.)

I am a little surprised at the innocent statement
of the learned translator, that “Dr. Wordsworth justifies
Hippolytus’ use of this word.” It must have occurred
to every student of the Greek Testament that St. Peter justifies
this use in the passage quoted by Wordsworth, which one would think
must be self-suggested to any theologian reading our author’s
text. In short, Hippolytus quotes the second Epistle of
St. Peter11321132ταρταρώσας,
2 Pet. ii. 4. A sufficient answer to Dr.
Bunsen, vol. iv. p. 33, who says this Epistle was not known to the
primitive Church.
(ii. 4) when he uses this otherwise
startling word. Josephus also employs it;11331133
See Speaker’s Comm., ad loc. it was familiar to the Jews, and the
apostle had no scruple in adopting a word which proves the Gentile
world acquainted with a Gehenna as well as a Sheol.

XVIII.

(For Christ is the God, p. 153.)

Dr. Wordsworth justly censures Bunsen for his
rendering of this passage,11341134St. Hippol., p. 301, with original text.
also for manufacturing for Hippolytus a “Confession of
Faith” out of his tenth book.11351135 Vol.
i. p. 141, etc. I must refer the student to that
all-important chapter in Dr. Wordsworth’s work (cap. xi.) on the
“Development of Christian Doctrine.” It is masterly,
as against Dr. Newman, as well; and the respectful justice which he
renders at the same time to Dr. Bunsen is worthy of all
admiration. Let it be noted, that, while one must be surprised by
the ready command of literary and theological materials which the
learned doctor and chevalier brings into instantaneous use for his
work, it is hardly less surprising, in spite of all that, that he was
willing to throw off his theories and strictures, without any delay,
during the confusions of that memorable year 1851, when I had the
honour of meeting him among London notabilities. He says to his
“dearest friend, Archdeacon Hare,…Dr. Tregelles informed me
last week of the appearance of the work (of Hippolytus)…I
procured a copy in consequence, and perused it as soon as I
could; and I have already arrived at conclusions which seem to me
so evident that I feel no hesitation in expressing them to you
at 162once.”
These conclusions were creditable to his acumen and learning in
general; eminently so. But the theories he had so hastily
conceived, in other particulars, crop out in so many crudities of
theological caprice, that nobody should try to study his theoretical
opinions without the aid of that calm reviewal they have received from
Dr. Wordsworth’s ripe and sober scholarship and well-balanced
intellect.

————————————

1109 I
venture to state this to encourage young students to keep pen in hand
in all their researches, and always to make notes.

1110
Pompey and others were called imperatores before the
Cæsars, but who includes them with the Roman emperors?

1111 How St.
Peter would regard it, see 1
Pet. v. 1–3. I am sorry to find Dr.
Schaff, in his useful compilation, History of the Christian
Church, vol. ii. p 166, dropping into the old ruts of fable, after
sufficiently proving just before, what I have maintained. He
speaks of “the insignificance of the first
Popes,”—meaning the early Bishops of Rome, men who
minded their own business, but could not have been
“insignificant” had they even imagined themselves
“Popes.”

1112
See Bossuet, passim, and all the Gallican doctors down to
our own times. In England the “supremacy” was
never acknowledged, nor in France, until now.